To Lyger 0: You mean Bri working in such close proximity to her criminal father?


Standing in a small clearing just inside the forest on the opposite side of the road from Miradouro da Lua, Cara stared down at her hands, at the simple, unassuming silvery-pink pendant resting in the dark brown wooden box. Lines expanding out from the center of the pendant swirled around one another in a pattern reminiscent of a Celtic knot, the ends of which projected out from the pendant and joined together to form the lanyard. Since Paris, she had been questioning her value against the Tarasque – with only her trident as a weapon, she had accomplished less than nothing. Here in Angola, she had used her biochemical training to assist off and on in the medical tents. But inevitably they would return to Europe to face the Tarasque once again. Then she would once again be less than useless. That was why she had volunteered for this during yesterday's meeting. But all of that had been in a vacuum, surrounded by the other heroes, having heard about the miraculous as these mystical objects which possessed enormous potential in the right hands. Who wouldn't be excited by that prospect? Now, however, looking down at the object itself, did she imagine the sensation of barely-restrained power seeking nothing more than to explode out against anyone and everyone around? She swallowed anxiously.

Why had she volunteered for this?

"You realize you have to actually touch the thing if you're going to use it, right?" Bandruí pointed out, raising an eyebrow at her. She leaned against a tree on the far side of the clearing, watching her in amusement. One of her hands moved slowly in a circular pattern as a trio of vines twisted around each other into a tight coil.

Cara gave her a halfhearted glare. "It's all well and good for you," she retorted, jerking her head toward the vines. "You have your own powers, and one of your friends is a miraculous user already. For you, I'm sure the idea of playing with powers far beyond your understanding is just another Tuesday. But for me? Not so much. For as many times as I've seen miraculous in use, this is still easily the closest I've ever gotten to one."

"Chan eil dad agad ri eagal," Dhuan told Cara, clapping her on the shoulder.

Cara cocked her head and raised an eyebrow in confusion. "What did he say?"

"Tha fios agam air an sin agus tha fios agad air an sin, ach tha dragh oirre fhathast." Bandruí grinned. "You know, if you'd just put that thing on, you'd be able to understand him just fine," she reminded her. "He said not to worry."

"About the fact that I agreed to hold a miraculous inhabited by a slightly-crazed Kwami so dangerous that the world had to forget about him and it for millennia," Cara deadpanned.

Hovering just to Cara's right, Tikki folded her arms and sighed irritably. "I didn't say that Chaas is crazy; I said that he's been alone and isolated for so long that he may be a little… off… when you activate his miraculous."

"That doesn't sound all that much better."

"Oh, don't worry about him," Plagg told her, hovering beside Tikki. He grinned toothily. "He's a little… fishy. But overall he's purr-etty cool. Besides, he didn't even do the thing they locked him away for!"

"And yet I've got an audience of two of the – apparently – most powerful Kwamis in existence for when I let him out…" Cara muttered.

"Only because we haven't seen him in a millennium or five," replied Plagg, shrugging.

"Oh, just pick it up," Bandruí urged Cara. "I'm sure you're making this into a much bigger thing than it needs to be."

"Gabh e," Dhuan pressed, gesturing to the miraculous.

"Just remember," Tikki piped up, an over-confident look in her eyes, "you hold the miraculous, so you are in control." She glanced over at Plagg, frowning, and he waved one paw at her. Tikki sighed. "A Kwami cannot disobey a direct command from the miraculous' holder," she explained.

Bandruí started, her eyes widening in surprise. "Really?"

"Is e sin an dìomhaireachd as motha aig an kwamis," replied Dhuan, nodding.

"Don't get any funny ideas, Greeny," Plagg warned.

Tikki nodded somberly. "We are putting a lot of trust in you both by telling you this."

"I won't let you down," promised Bandruí. Her hand stopped moving, and the vines dropped back down into the grass. "Your secret is safe with me."

"Barkk speaks highly of you," Tikki squeaked, beaming brightly at her.

"Really?"

Plagg snorted. "That Dog 'speaks highly' of everyone, so don't let it go to your head!"

"Oh."

As they were talking in the background, Cara looked down into the box, tracing a finger over the Atlantean and proto-Celtic glyphs etched into the wood. It was such a little thing, with so much potential. In the wrong hands, so they said, it could do so much harm. But in her hands? Her mouth set in a thin line. There was only one way to find out. Steeling herself, Cara grabbed the pendant and pulled it out of the box. The silvery-pink coloration vanished from the pendant and turned to a light powder-blue as the pendant emitted a bright silver flash. Cara held up the hand still holding the box to shield her eyes, wincing away from the light. But when she looked back, a light pink Kwami with a dozen tentacles protruding from its oversized dome-shaped head appeared hovering in the air in front of her.

Eyes wide, Chaas twirled around in midair, looking around himself in confusion. As he turned several of his tentacles weaved themselves together into a body, leaving two separate tentacles dangling beside the weaved "body." He gasped, eyes wide. "Who–wha–where–what happened to Archaeus?" Catching sight of Plagg and Tikki, he bolted in their direction, his "arms" outstretched. "Plagg! It's been so long! I–I have no–What–what's going on?" he asked, his voice laced with worry.

Plagg grimaced, catching Chaas by the "shoulders" and holding him at arm's length. "Hey, kiddo… it's, um, it's been a while, hasn't it?"

"I–I don't–" Chaas swallowed. "How–how long has it been?"

Tikki cleared her throat awkwardly. "So… what do you remember?"

Chaas' tentacles drooped. "I–I remember… Archaeus argued with the Mage. He swore to burn Atlantis to the ground. I was worried. Then bits and pieces of confusion. And then… nothing." He looked up at Tikki, a pleading look in his eyes. "Did–did he do it?"

Plagg scoffed. "No; he didn't do it. Our holders managed to stop him in time, though it was pretty close."

"That's good." Letting out a breath, Chaas nodded and looked around, his brows furrowed in confusion. He cocked his head to one side, staring at the trees and grass. "So then… is this Atlantis? It–it doesn't look like Atlantis…"

Tikki raised an eyebrow at Plagg and rubbed her forehead. "… I'm going to let you take this one."

"Thanks, Sugar Cube." Plagg deadpanned, giving her an annoyed look. He sighed heavily and raised an eyebrow at Chaas. "No, kiddo; I actually destroyed Atlantis. A century or three after you were locked away." He grimaced. "So… I guess you can't get in trouble for that again!"

Dhuan cocked his head in confusion, staring at Plagg with his mouth hanging open. He blinked. "[Wait… you destroyed Atlantis?]"

Plagg folded his arms irritably. "Yes, Bear Necessities. I destroyed the city."

"[I have heard people speak of a 'New Atlantis' several times since my arrival… I did not realize that meant that the original was no more.]"

"Huh." Bandruí furrowed her brows in thought. "Cha robh mi air smaoineachadh mu dheidhinn sin." She pursed her lips. "So there was a real Atlantis…"

"[I should have thought of it myself.]" Dhuan's shoulders fell. "[All of that… for nothing.]"

Cara blinked, looking down at the miraculous in her hand and then back up at Chaas and Dhuan. Physically, the words that Dhuan spoke still sounded as incomprehensible as they had previously. And yet, for some reason, she found that she could understand him now – on a deeper level. "You know," she pointed out to Dhuan, "Atlantis isn't the only city to have been destroyed by cataclysm–"

"–Hey!" Plagg protested, glaring at her. "I swear it was only the once…"

"–my own city, Lisbon, was in the path of the Lion," Cara continued, all her attention on Dhuan. The memories flooded back into her mind: the spray of water, the roars, the sounds of rending metal and screaming men as tanks were crushed under foot or brushed aside. Swallowing hard, she folded her arms, looking down at the ground. "There–there was nothing I could do about it. The Lion tore through it, and we were utterly helpless to stop it. We tried – god, did we try – but it was like trying to hold back the tide. My city was practically washed out into the ocean, and when I left for Paris, it looked like there was almost nothing left except ruins. Then, while I was in Paris, that city was absolutely demolished by the Tarasque itself." Her shoulders tensed. "For all the good I did, I might as well not have been there."

"We were all out of our depth there," Bandruí pointed out, giving Cara a sympathetic look. "We managed in Germany just by the skin of our teeth; in Lisbon I felt like we'd lost even before we began."

Plagg hummed. "Wish I could help you guys," he told them. "But I don't remember ever fighting something like this before…" He raised an eyebrow at Tikki meaningfully, but she shook her head.

"No – I don't remember it either," she apologized. Together, she and Plagg glanced over at Chaas.

Chaas blinked in confusion. "Well don't look at me!" he protested. "I have no idea what you're talking about!"

Ignoring the Kwamis' conversation, Dhuan stared at Cara in shock. "['Lisbon', you said? That is not 'Olisippo', is it? On the great ocean, all the way to the east along the coast at the mouth of the Teixo?]"

Cara's jaw dropped, and her mouth fell open, blinking at him. "You mean Rio Tejo? You actually know of it? I mean, I knew that Lisbon was old…"

He nodded. "[It was founded as an Atlantean trading outpost,]" he explained. "[In fact, we stopped there en route to Hy-Brasil.]"

She let out a breath, swallowing hard, and looked down at the ground. "And after all that…"

Chaas floated over to Cara and placed a tentacle on her cheek. "You are my new holder?" he asked, hope in his voice.

She shrugged. "That's the plan, at least," she agreed, nodding. "At least until we stop the Tarasque once and for all."

He smiled excitedly. "After spending so long stuck in my miraculous, I'm excited to get back out!"

"Even under these circumstances?"

He nodded. "Under any circumstances. Under these circumstances?" He shrugged. "It's going to be okay. We might not have been able to save Olisippo, or Paris, or Atlantis… but we can stop this monster, here and now."

She scoffed derisively, giving him a disbelieving look. "Yeah? What makes you think it's going to be any different this time?"

"Because…" Chaas grinned manically, his eyes alight. "This time, you have me!"


AN: As before, Scots Gaelic is acting as a stand-in for Proto Celtic because there aren't any translators for Proto Celtic online. Also, while Lisbon wasn't actually founded by Atlantis, it is one of the oldest cities in Europe. So it could have been…